Scream For Me
by Forfun100
Summary: Katniss was taken away, She will be tortured, She will be broken, and She will never be the same. Snow will make sure her innocence is taken. Lines will be crossed, insanity will be reached, and just maybe our Mockingjay will find strength comes when hope seems like a wish the pityful believe in.
1. Chapter 1 The Brightest Darkness

Authors note.

Hello there, Bon jour, I'm very glad to meet you. I'm excited and rather nervous simply because this is my first M rated fan fic. So please tell me what you think I should change or how to improve. I'm so excited to share this with you I could just about explode! I have been here for about a year now and I figured it was time to break out of my comfort zone. I have already done a fic in which Katniss was taken by the Capitol, but in that one she was pregnant. That was a bit off-putting simply because there was no high jacking she just lost her memory and that story went off to be way more than I ever intended. Plus I didn't read Mockingjay and therefore didn't know Peeta was filled with drugs to hate her. I know what you're thinking, YOU DIDN'T EVEN READ THE BOOK AND YOU'RE WRITING A FAN FICTION?! STOP RIGHT NOW! Meanwhile back in reality my most popular story is the one about Katniss pregnant in the Capitol. Someone spoiled the book for me and I just had them tell me everything that happened, then I Wikipediaed it. So anyways I'm fairly sure that they would not have used the same methods of torture with Katniss as they would Peeta so I shall be throwing in a few surprises. The reasons for this M rating I'm ever so talkative of are as follows.

Rape

Sexual content

Drug use

Abuse

Torture - including but not limited to - fire, electricity, flesh eaters, mutants, and tests of sanity.

A shit ton of blood

Swears

Suicide attempts

And attempted murder

I want you all to know how much I thank you for reading this dinky little thing and now let's get started.

* * *

Chapter 1 Brightest Darkness

_"In the future, torture will once again become a recreational sport of the rich" Doug Coupland_

I woke up once. I remember it distinctly. I felt my tired eyes flicker open for a moment. The whiteness of the room blinded me, the smell of blood and death clogged my senses. Then a faint eerie smell of roses over powered the scent of blood, and the wicked chuckle of a sinister man beside me entered my mind.

"Go back to sleep, my Little Lamb." I didn't see the person but I couldn't fight sleep.

It soon became unbearable to keep my eyes closed, once my tired eyelids had fallen. All I could see was brightness and I wondered why it wasn't dark like it always had been.

Like when everything went black in the arena, or when I would sleep after hunting. I wondered why the darkness left me. Why brightness had taken its place.

Though upon waking up I rather wished it bright.

Cold dark grey walls greet my waking body. I look now at the cracked decaying walls. Little light is present in what I have concluded is my cell.

There are no bars just a hardly noticeable door as far from me as possible. I look down at my hands which are bound to the bed (well alright more like a table) with rusty copper cuffs. I'm wearing a thin white dress that almost seems like it was made translucent, which makes me uncomfortable.

The hardly noticeable door opens breaking my trance of confusion. A peace keeper walks briskly towards me. He says nothing but takes my cuffs off of the bed and attaches them together.

He grips my bicep and tugs me to stand up. I stumble to my feet as he drags me out of my confinement.

These halls are white and excruciatingly bright. He shoves me down to the end of the hall, and promptly crams me through the door. I fall to my face.

"Hello Katniss." Feet appear in front of my eyes. I sit up to my heels and look into his cold blue eyes.

"Snow." I grumble. My eyes narrow as my instincts make entire body stiffen.

He chuckles at me "It's so adorable how you still think you're the girl on fire, Katniss. But take away those flames, my dear. Take them away and you're left with nothing more than an innocent Little Lamb."

"I'd hardly call myself innocent" I mumble.

"Neither would I, however, you have yet to see what true evil is, my dear. You're an innocent girl in the sense of what you have seen and done." He snickers at me reaching my eye level, "You think the Games were bad just you wait my dear." He grabs my face in a sudden rage and begins to shake my head, "You think I've never dealt with someone like you before? Oh my dear Little Lamb you have no clue." He thrusts me to the floor so I can listen to my blood pulsate through my shaken brain.

"What do you want from me?" I manage to ask sitting up again.

"I want you to beg." He cackles standing up, "I know you have no part in this rebellion and so I just want you to suffer."

"They have a name for people like that, psychopaths." I say rather defiantly.

"Oh my dear, don't worry about holding your tongue anymore. Your fate is already decided and nothing will change my plans."

I breathe a bit harder at his words, "Ladies and Gentlemen." Suddenly the room fills with people. In response to their sudden appearance, I close my eyes afraid of them. They snap photos of my indisposed body, they shout questions and my name. I want to cower from them, but they are everywhere, "I present to you Katniss Everdeen. Who as you know will now be fundraising for our war front." He waves before the people disappear. Just like that all of those people are now gone.

"Fundraise?" I ask.

"Yes. My Little Lamb, you do know what they use Lamb for right?" I shake my head no, "They parade it around as a show animal before shaving it's fur and sending it to the butcher."

"You're going to-"

"No, I'm not going to kill you. But I do hope you enjoy our hospitals for you will be seeing a lot of them."

He walks past me stepping on my foot. My eyes wander the room confused as to how those people were here and then gone.

Two Peacekeeper come into the room and pick me up by my arms. They place me on a wall and suddenly I'm stuck there. My arms spread to the side and my legs parted so I make an X with my body. Then there is a lock over my mouth so my speech becomes halted altogether.

A doctor walks in and the lights in the once dim room turn up, "Won't this be interesting class? I want you to pay very close attention now. This is a very expensive, and RARE procedure"

I begin to shake when I hear this, what will they do? "Now, to begin we'll start with the right side on the Arch Foot Artery." He pulls out a scalpel and begins to cut my foot. I want to scream in fear but my voice is nonexistent. I have no control over any part of my body.

"We move up to the Dorsalis Pedis Artery right about here." He says, it looks like he simply draws along my body with a red marker. "You see right there?" He asks opening my wound wider, "It's clear which means it's healthy."

"Now we move up to the Anterior Tibial Artery before we hit the major artery of the leg the Femoral Artery" My leg burns as blood oozes out of it onto the floor. I have donated my body to science even though I am still alive.

My muffled cries subdue as time passes and I some how do not faint from all the blood loss.

He cuts my veins on my left side, leaving the arteries cut up on the right to make a clear path way of blood. Up and down my legs and arms he draws along my body with his scalpel. I am a human map of the body. I can feel my tears mix with blood when he cuts my facial arteries. When my hair gets in the way he cuts it off so to better show my cut open arteries and veins.

He doesn't cut my neck because that would kill me. I hope he'll have a slip of his hand.

I don't think there is any way to describe this intense burning pain. I am still stuck to the wall crying bloody tears, I can feel sweat mixing with blood. I can feel the infections of uncleaned wounds crawl through my blood system as the doctor closes the lesson.

These doctors treat the Capitol soldiers. I am a training dummy for these sick people. They smile and find themselves interested in every cut in my body. These people will save the men and women who are killing, or trying to kill my friends and family. I can now understand, that I have just given them basic tools to do so.

They leave me alone and Snow renters the room. "Hello my Little Lamb." He laughs, "You've been sheared of your fur I see. No more flame for my girl on fire, you have no wings Mockingjay. So my dear all you will ever be is this. An innocent Little Lamb.

"Used by _me_, to train _my_ doctors. Good work, now they shall save thousands of lives... _Capitol_ lives. Isn't it wonderful?" He gets so close to my face I can feel his hot breath entering my wounds making them pulsate with excruciating heat and pain.

What a cruel sick man. I stare at him trying to seem angry, but my face will not contort for I still have no control over it. "Aw, my Little Lamb," Snow laughs, "Guards!" He shouts and two enter the room, "Take her to the surgical ward, she'll be seeing quite a lot of it I bet."

They take my body off the wall and I fall to the floor in a heaping pile of blood and anguish. I cannot physically scream as of now. So instead I cry, I cry until I cannot cry anymore.

Though I sit here and cry I know one thing. They will never break me and now as I am thinking this I can only see the brightness of the hospital.

I hardly know what has happened when I'm greeted by the blinding light of the hospital yet again. "Good morning my Little Lamb." Snow chuckles, "I'm so glad you're getting quicker at recovery my dear. That's very good. Very good indeed. We may be ahead of schedule."

"What do you mean?" I ask finding myself in restraints.

"My Little Lamb we mustn't spoil virgin ears." He sighs, "Patience you'll find out in good time, just what is in store for you."

I breathe a bit differently at these words. I breathe with more hesitation, I feel my body cringing with every venomous word he utters.

"I'll see you in a few hours my Little Lamb." He pats my shoulder before walking away. I've never been quite so terrified in my life. Just the chill he manages to send down my spine every time vague and cryptic words come out of his mouth.

How he does it, I will never know. I stare at the endless bright ceiling as he leaves, and feel comfort only because I know that this means safety. This means sanctuary if only for the few hours I have.

I refuse to let my mind wander to that despicable mans scheme. But I have nothing else to think about, and just as I think this.

What happened to the others? Peeta? Finnick? Johanna? Beetee? Ebonaira? What about the districts? Is Gale okay? Or mother? What about Prim?

Snow spoke of rebellion, does that mean they're a part of it? Is there really a rebellion? Are the others here being tortured?

Then I realize I may be a prisoner of war. Will Snow use me for leeway if there really is a rebellion?

Pondering what may have happened takes up my few hours. "Come my Little Lamb."

"I'm so ecstatic" I contradict. He leads me through the hospital and to underground tunnels eventually leading us to a room that looks like an underground arena.

The people in the stands are all in Capitol uniforms. Snow shoves me on an elevated platform where I stand crooked. My feet inverted, knees bent slightly, as if I'm prepared to run if need be. But then again where would I run?

"Welcome everyone, I know you are all very anxious for the show, but just to set the tone for this performance let us reflect.

"Katniss Everdeen. Victor of the seventy-four annual Hunger Games, has committed treason against the Capitol. She was once known as the girl on fire." Everyone cheered and Snow leads them on. "Now she will burn."

Suddenly where I now stand bursts into a glaring blaze, I scream on contact with the flame. It hungrily eats away at my thin dress. I fall to my knees feeling my entire body kissed and bit by fire.

I can feel my skin reach its melting point, I can feel every thread of clothing singe and disappear off my body. I can hear my fingernails crack in the heat.

My hair crackles like wood in a fire-place. I want to die, as my nerves fuse together, and my skin melts off my body.

The flame is ready to kill me, but Snow has promised not to let that happen. The flame is doused with a quick water fall.

The cool sears more than the flame. I can feel my once melting skin harden in the sudden temperature change, making the remains of my dress stick to my skin. I grip my arms as my skin crystallizes in the cold air. I begin to cry which also burns.

My soaking, singed hair sticks to my face, though there is hardly any left it covers my eyes.

"Get up!" Snow spits, "Up!" He kicks my ribs as if I am some animal he is tending

I manage to get onto my blistered and now bleeding feet. My muscles contract so tightly I want to fall back down. But I don't, I stand to face them.

"She was the spark that started this war, and now we will give her more than a spark!"

I am then shot with electricity, how much I can't be exactly sure. How I am still living, I am also dumbfounded.

It was like a quick snap of every nerve in my body. As if all my nerves and blood vessels splintered apart after being fused as one, and I find myself incapacitated. I can't move, nor do I want to ever again. I would be fine to just lay in this spot.

They are laughing and jeering, trying to infuriate me, wanting me to take a stand, even with singed uneven hair, with my violently shaking muscles that I can't stop even if I tried, with my bleeding melted skin. They edge me on, beg me to challenge their authority over me.

I want to die, but Snow has promised not to let that happen.

"Their Mockingjay, their spark, their girl on fire, has crumbled to her feet before us. Just as they all will!" They all shout honors for the Capitol, I cry silently shaking uncontrollably with bleeding melted skin, my muscles jolt with electricity still bouncing along the railways of my nervous system. I would never hope this pain on any other as long as I live. No one, not even Snow deserves this amount of excruciating pain.

When my mother would bring men to our house for healing, the first thing she would ask them is to rate their pain on a scale of one to ten. This pain was a nine and I fear the day I feel my ten, I fear the day I feel my ten is very near. I wonder if he'll really force me to keep living.

Even if he will I know only this, he will never break me. No matter what they do to me, I will not break. I'm still laying on the floor thinking about my resistance to his tortures.

I wonder if he'll just leave me here. I get my answer when the bright lights of the hospital blind me. I groan as the lights mean temporary safety before my next torture. Snow isn't by my side, I am grateful for this happening.

I am grateful to be alone. But I know it will not last. I look at my bound hands, they have shiny new red skin that still doesn't feel right.

It's not my skin, I don't even have my own skin. How do I keep going? I'm not even sure to what degree my sanity is at.

"Come Little Lamb we have some persuading to do." Snow smiles interupting my thoughts, as guards pull my limp body up.

I pretend my legs are not working but they just drag me to a small confined room anyway.

I'm left alone for a few minutes in the darkness before a light shines. I look and see Johanna, sitting and fighting the guards.

"Look Johanna at your little comrade." Snows voice pierces through the looking-glass he is using.

Johanna is being forced to look at my limp body. Her eyes still have fire, they still have hope, and it is strange because this prompts some hope to enter my own heart. I smile meekly at her.

"Brainless" She whispers just loud enough that Snow and I can hear her.

"You told a pretty little lie in the games didn't you? _There is no one left I love!_ Well there is one person left, two really, sadly I only have your little fire friend and not that fish man."

He's talking about Finnick, so he's safe. That's good. He's safe at least someone is.

"Commander, whenever you're ready" Snow smiles slyly.

I feel strong arms lift me to stand. My cuffs become attached to a wall. I use my legs to stand slightly off balance and my skin pulls as it has yet to be used.

I hear the crack of the whip before I feel it on my skin. I will not cry, not at this, not in front of Johanna who clearly knows something. Whips do not scare me. They are used too often as threats in Twelve. She needs to stay silent for the sake of the rebellion I'm not so sure is even in effect.

But there is a twist, as I am finding everything in the Capitol to have, and this whip has spikes that I can feel embed into my skin. They latch on and with each whip I can feel them leaking something into my blood system.

"What are you doing?" She asks wearily.

"Making you care." He snickers.

I look at the window and lock eyes with Johanna, I mouth to her "They will never break me." and only pray she can read my lips. I cringe as he takes another whack at my back.

I had started to feel them break me, but her fire rekindled my own. I feel weak and weary but I know I'll get by. I know I won't break. She needs to know this too. That I will never give up.

I've counted twenty lashes now. I keep my eyes locked with Johanna's trying to keep her sane. She has hope and I need to hold on to her hope as well.

After forty lashes I am ripped off the wall and thrown to the ground. I still refuse to cry. I can feel the spikes in my back release some kind of liquid into my blood stream. I only hope it's poison.

It isn't of course, but one could wish. I feel my muscles contract and release. My eyes roll into the back of my head. I'm seizing, why? I don't know.

"Brainless!" I hear Johanna shout but nothing can be done. I'm seizing in a pool of my own blood. I realize don't have skin on my back anymore. That I know for sure.

My seizing assures me of that, as I can feel my skin tear away from the muscles it protects.

"She'll die you know." I hear Snow say, "If we don't treat her soon." I know I'm safe. I try to open my eyes to reassure Johanna I'm fine, that I will not break, but when I try to move another dosage of this seizure medicine courses through my veins.

I only feel the jostling of blood and skin until I can feel nothing at all.

The hospital fades into view. "You're late my dear Little Lamb." Snow yanks me to my feet. "You know Caesar doesn't like to be kept waiting."

"Huh?"

"You have an interview in an hour. Don't worry I have an off-screen camera you'll be reading off of." He takes me to the old training center and through to a prep room.

My old team is there, they offer me condolences for the baby I apparently miscarried a few months ago. I've been locked up for months, they tell me, that I was recovering and healing from the Games.

They tell me Cinna died, they also tell me how thrilled they are that I am on the Capitol's side. How the Capitol is the side that will win.

They speak of war as if two children are fighting over a toy and that this has nothing to do with real lives. I guess they've always been this way. But it bothers me now more than ever.

They slip a wedding dress on to me. As if to mock me, as if to slap me in my pathetic state. But even like this they will not break me.

"Tell me do you know where Peeta is?" I ask upholding the Star-crossed lovers act as well as being afraid for all my family.

"Oh you poor dear." Vienna placed a hand on my cheek, "He's in District Thirteen."

"You poor kids! I can't believe war is tearing you two apart" Flavius bawls. I nod and look down at the fabric. The dress is too extravagant for anything I'd have ever picked. Or anything Peeta would like for that matter. Peeta wouldn't be repulsed by it but he wouldn't want me to wear it.

"Come along Dear, we are on a tight schedule to keep" I'm not sure who says this because of the trance I've placed myself in. I'm pushed on stage where I meet Caesar.

"Well don't you look stunning?" I smile and hope I don't wring his neck while the opertunity is prime. "You're not going to catch fire on us again are you?"

"No I promise I won't" I look slightly off stage to see yes there are lines for me to go off.

I am thankful for it. I wouldn't have lasted half of the interview without it. Two hours of sitting in a wedding dress talking about a boy I'm still not sure about my feelings for, about a baby I never carried, and about a war I knew nothing about until days prior. I'm dragged away from the place and back to my confinement.

"What next?" I ask wearily as Snow paces my cell. I'm not really asking him. I'm asking myself. I'm going crazy here, new skin every time I wake up. The ringing of the flames still hung in my ears but is now replaced with the sound of the whip cracking. And then cracking reminds me of when my fingernails cracked in the flames... Every time I run my hands along my arms I can remember how it felt when it was melting and I shiver to think about it.

What more can he possibly do? How much more of this can I handle? Will I ever be free again?

He chuckles and it chills my skin, "Oh my dear Little Lamb. So impatient." He takes my face in his hands. "Don't worry, we'll get to the fun soon. If we stay on schedule by the end of the week even." I have until the end of the week to live. I never thought I'd be given a time frame of when I can live and die.

I'm suddenly very afraid, and I want nothing more than to hide away.

"Well I'm sure they can take you early." He lifts me up to stand and guides me through the hall. I've been in three of these eight doors. I wonder if all my tortures lay behind these doors.

He throws me into one of the rooms before taking off my hand cuffs and leaving. I can feel the raw skin of my wrists breathe again. I want to cry but I don't even though this room is pitch black, I don't feel alone.

I hear something moving around the room many small somethings. I can't make out the exact sound but it sounds like it's scratching at the floor and walls in an attempt to escape.

The lights slowly turn on until I can hardly see what has been making the noise. Cockroaches, they don't faze me, being from District Twelve I'm used to them. I don't like them but I certainly am not afraid of them, "Thank you for testing our new mutants My dear"

"Mutants?" I whisper.

"Flesh eating insects. I think an attack of these will do well in your dear District Eleven."

My eyes widen at this news, the mutts look at me now. "Let's test them out now shall we?"

I scream, attacked from all sides, the bugs quickly crawl up my body devouring my flesh sucking the life out of me.

I collapse to the floor as the mutants rip my flesh. They creep along my now exposed arteries and muscles. I am afraid, I may be screaming in pain and fear but they will never break me.

Or at least that's what I'm telling myself. But I'm not sure. Telling myself I will not break makes me feel better. Though, I feel like I know I've cracked under these people.

I feel like I have let them get to me, but in telling myself I am strong they have not yet fully ripped me apart.

When I find the bright return of sanctuary I can still feel the lingering crawling feeling those mutts left on my skin. I look around tugging at my chains, in pure laziness. I know where I am, I just don't want to be here. Sure I can't say I want to be anywhere in particular. Well maybe in hell, at least there I might be left alone to my torture.

"I see your awake again my Little Lamb." Snow smirks knowingly at me. I'm not broken, I tell myself, He hasn't won. Though I'm still not sure if this is true. "How much water does it take to douse that fire in your eyes, Little Lamb?"

"There is not enough water on this earth." I respond though I am not confident in this answer.

His icy eyes flash with entertainment. "Still fiery I see. We'll just change that." He begins to leave the room before speaking again, "I hope you know this will be an immense pleasure for me."

With that he is gone. I'm angered by his words, I want to lash out. I want to rebel but I know I cannot.

I have hope since they questioned Johanna that maybe there is a rebellion maybe everyone is safe. Maybe, just maybe there is some hope in this dark place. This bright hospital room has never seemed so dismal before. Never so eerie before.

The Peacekeepers gently get me out of the bed. They change me into a lace white dress instead of the normal tattered blood stained one and into leather cuffs instead of copper.

"What is this?" I ask.

"Leather doesn't scar." One says simply, "We were told not to hurt you... Yet" He grins with pleasure.

The second jostles me down the hallway, "Now shut up we don't want to ruin the shoot."

"The-"

"Shut up!"

I comply only because I'm their prisoner and they can do what ever they want to me.

We stand there waiting in a hallway for the longest time. I stare at my feet and contemplate what must be behind that door. I wonder what he'll do to me.

I'm afraid but not so afraid I'm paralyzed when I'm finally pushed into the room.

I'm shoved into a boxed area of the room and pushed to the ground.

"This," Snow gestures to me, "Is your Mockingjay. Your precious hope." I notice the camera crew filming him and following him with the camera.

"You can take those things off, she's not going anywhere." He snickers at me. The guards take off my leather bands.

"You think you're so pure? So innocent?"

"You stole all of that. I have nothing left of innocence to give you!" I snarl.

"That is where you're dead wrong my Little Lamb. That is where you are dead wrong."

Suddenly my hands and legs stick to the walls spreading my legs apart. "What?" I mutter.

"For you see there is but one ounce of innocence left in you." He crouches to my eye level. "And I plan to rip it out of you."

Before I know what's happening his puffed up lips have locked with mine. I scream behind my lips and clenched teeth. I scream and feel my shoulders pinned to the wall behind me like my hands and legs.

He pulls back and slaps me. "Shut up" He whispers I gasp in fear and disgust. He pulls my jaw to face him and the camera, "I want to enjoy this my Little Lamb." I feel him inch his hand up my right thigh as he presses his lips to mine again.

I muffle cries and pleas as my lace skirt falls to my hips. He bites my lower lip and strokes my thigh.

This can't be happening to me can it?

I close my eyes tightly and feel his lips travel down my jaw and to my neck. I presume he's taking off his pants when his hand leaves my thigh.

Once his lips return to mine, his hand gropes my breast with a raging hunger I have never known. I'm more than afraid, I'm petrified

His hands travel from fondling my breasts to holding the small of my back.

I can feel him nearing me and my skin crawls in anxiety, I've heard of erections before, I've never seen anyone with one before but I know of them. I know he has one and I know what comes after you get one and the reason for it is sitting nearly naked in front of you.

His lips lock with mine again. Tears stream down my cheeks, trailing my jaw and falling on to my collarbone.

He pushes into me and it takes all of those restraints to hold me back. I scream behind his lips, I scream for help though my voice does not exist in the air as I had hoped. I'm praying that if there is a god he'll end this now.

It hurts, as he moves inside me I can feel the skin rip. I know the science of this, from school courses. How when a woman is being raped she tenses up to keep the foreign object out of her. How the muscles are so tight they tear.

I can feel him take away all I have. He moves and moans in pleasure. I rasp cries of pain while he sighs in satisfaction.

It's not long before his lips smash into mine, before he goes rougher pushing farther into me. Before he's gasping for breath craving more of me.

My bated breath comes from my fear and the agonizing torture of these occurrences. He roughly grips my breasts again, squeezing and clawing at them. I lay incapacitated, exposed, and raw to him. I feel blood and semen sticking to my legs the more he pushes into me.

His tongue maneuvers in-between my teeth. In his vulgarity he rips my dress and for a second between thrusts, looks down at my chest.

He holds my bare breasts in his hands as he resumes pushing into me. As he tears away the last thread of childhood I held dear to my heart.

I feel myself tighten and tear while he continues his destruction of me. I feel only pain in his pleasure.

As his ragged breath intensifies I can feel him bite my tender new skin. He nibbles on my jaw and ear lobes. This is supposed to bring pleasure but only makes me cry. I can almost feel the skin bruise on contact with his teeth.

He is sweating, his skin boils against mine. In his last thrust I can feel him come.

It's over, I have crossed the barrier of child to adult. My breasts are sore and tender, surely to bruise like the rest of me. My skin feels raw and torn, just like my pride and dignity.

He pulls out of me and smirks. "My dear Little Lamb. No longer quite so innocent are we?"

He pulls his pants on so I can now open my eyes. I see blood pool around me. I'm still bleeding heavily too.

The wall releases me of my confinement. I take my arms and curl into a ball. I lean against the wall and cry. I don't care that I can feel the blood ooze around my feet, I don't care that I can feel the throbbing pain of forced fornication. I need to have strong sure arms surround me in confort, and I am the only one who can offer this.

"Are the rebels really telling me that THIS is their hope? This is their symbol? Well I guess that explains that." He laughs at me, and then his hateful breath is in my ear, "Show them your face my Little Lamb." He seethes with anger.

He rips my head from my hold and smashes it into the wall. "Show. Them. What. The. Face. Of. The. Rebellion. Looks. Like!" With each word I get my face smashed into the wall.

So much blood pours down my face I cannot see. I feel like I'm looking at camera but I can't be sure.

He laughs again, "Your girl on fire? Her flame has died out." He throws me back to the ground.

He's right, my flame has died. I'm broken and I cannot lie to myself any longer. I cannot hide the simple fact, that I have nothing left. I have been torn open and exposed for all the world to see. These sick people have broadcasted me loosing my virginity, and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. I am and probably always will be broken.

He grabs me by my neck and throws me across the room. "She is nothing now." I would grip the ground if blood loss were not hindering my stability.

"Stand up!" He demands. "Up!"

I weakly get on my knees and push up on to wobbly arms. My head spins so violently I use all my remaining energy to vomit. Blood is all that comes up.

Though as weak as I am I stand up, on vibrating legs and unsure feet, I stand to face my enemy.

"I have cut your wings Mockingjay, you are nailed into the ground. Your flame has been doused. I have sold you my Little Lamb. And at a hefty cost too."

He slaps me so hard, I fall to the ground and inevitably into unconsciousness. My last thoughts before succumbing to the darkness are consumed by the realization of my body being violated.

I'm no longer a virgin, I have nothing left to give. So what will he take next?

_"Soil a woman, no one understands what that means. Not all woman are pure, I cannot truthfully admit this. But what is that saying to the rapist? That it is okay if she sleeps around. I came sadly to realize this meager point. Rape means nothing anymore. Just so long as you leave a mess of a woman you're doing it right" ~Unknown_


	2. Chapter 2 The Fall

_"Rape is worse than murder, because everyday a woman lives after the fact, she dies more and more." ~Unknown_

When my body is shaken awake by nightmares, I find myself still in the pool of blood from yesterday. My body aches from sleeping on the concrete floors, and everything is sore.

I slowly recall what happened and how Snow... Oh my god, Snow raped me.

I stand but it is excruciating. I hear my bones pop as I move, and my muscles contract awkwardly as I stand.

I look around the dim room and see a lone mirror standing on the wall opposite me. My head throbs as I near it. I suddenly feel dizzy as my eyes gaze upon my reflection.

I am beyond thin, I look emaciated. My torn, blood stained dress hangs lifelessly on my bony frame. My cheeks are gaunt and thin, my arms hang to my sides without muscles. My legs are bones which I stand upon.

My eyes look as defeated as I feel. Blood still cakes to my skin. I can see distinct purple and blue bruises remain from yesterdays events. I can also see cuts in my arms from my struggle.

I'm sure without this dress every bone in my body would be visible to the naked eye.

It is then I realize that I haven't eaten food since I was in the arena. I've been under the knife so much they have just been pumping nutrients into my system.

I'm a walking corpse for this sick twisted excuse for a man. I allow tears to fall down my face.

I'm allowed to cry, I've been beaten, battered, abused, even raped. I have earned the right to cry.

I fall to my bony bruised knees and tremble in my own arms.

I hear the door open and I flinch in fear. "Morning my Little Lamb." I sit up and look at Snow.

My breath becomes ragged and my body switches into instinct, "Come now Little Lamb, you can't possible have any fight left in you." He's right I have nothing.

I sit back on my heels. He grabs my arm and throws me into the boxed area that confined me to my pervious torture.

"You will remain in that spot." He scolds before squatting to my level. "I have some very exciting news for you my Little Lamb. The first being that you have a whole line of people just waiting to pay for some time with you."

I look at him in disgust, "So this is your plan? To sell me as a prostitute?"

"Very good my dear." He snickers, "Now let me finish." He throws pills down my throat and forces me to swallow them. "I've just given you enough sustenance for today. Why waste time eating when a few pills will do the trick?"

I cough a little before he speaks again, "Yet more good news my Little Lamb. It seems you're pregnant."

My eyes grow, I can't be pregnant, not after one time, not with Snows child. He shoves more pills down my throat, "And now you're not." He says as my abdomen burns. "Isn't it wonderful what scientists can come up with?"

I feel blood oozing onto my legs, I can only question if any of this is real.

"Now I must inform you that your clientele will not enjoy the screams that I endured yesterday, so my scientist have gladly given me these." He shows me medical syringes filled with some clear serum. "This won't make you enjoy it anymore, but it will certainly make them believe you're enjoying it." He shoves the syringe into my right arm.

I only gasp in shock, not in pain.

"Have fun my dear." He leaves then. My arms and legs are strapped to the wall again. A man walks in he is tall and muscularly built. He looks like he could break me very easily.

I close my eyes tightly, fear courses through my veins as his lips meet mine.

I understand now what Snow has done. This serum makes my skin so alert that every time this man moves inside me, every touch of his hand makes my skin electrify. I moan and gasp with every touch.

His hideous grunting makes me yearn to leave a red mark across his face, his huge hands make me jump and groan against him.

This hell I've been condemned to... Cannot be much worse. Once this man has finished and he leaves me alone I can think.

I am to sleep with any man who meets Snows price. With the blood that still surrounds my feet I make two lines on the wall next to me.

Before long another man enters, I use the serum Snow left me and he gets exactly what he paid for. I make noise and move with his hands. He's indulging his thirst for sex. I am simply the middle man for this wish.

* * *

I cannot be certain just how many days have passed. But I am certain of a few things.

One, the people of the Capitol do not care who they are fucking or what she looks like, just so long as they have someone to curve their craving for human reproduction they have no preference.

Two, the higher up the Capitol citizen the harder and quicker they go. I bleed the most with them.

Three, Peacekeepers get to fuck me for half off. At least that must be it because I have seen so many of them.

Four, one Peacekeeper named Bruce is the kindest and the gentlest. He apologizes to me and tells me I do not deserve this. Yet he still rapes me. It's almost like being a kind slave owner, you are a kind person, and you are gracious with your slaves, but you still own a slave. But what do I know? I'm just the Capitol's prostitute.

Five, I have had sex with fifty-seven different men.

Six, I have been raped one hundred and sixty-one times during my captivity.

Seven, everyday Snow shoves pills down my throat for nutrition (and abortions just in case.)

Eight, I don't sleep anymore I simply stare at the ceiling.

Nine, the serum Snow makes me use for each client has tracker-jacker venom in it. I know this because of the distorted images after sex.

Ten, everyone I have ever met in my entire life is trying to kill me. They all want me dead and I'll do the same to them.

Eleven, people in the Capitol have surgery to look like tributes in different games, and sometimes they look like people from their choice district.

Twelve, I'm going to kill myself as soon as I can.

The moment Snow has injected me with more venom and leaves something strange occurs. A woman enters the room.

She is all gold, gold hair, gold skin, gold clothes, the whole nine yards.

She does not immediately near me. She strips down in front of me. She lets her hair fall freely down her back and then she nears me.

"Show me what a girl on fire can do." She says. Her gold lips reach mine, her manicured hand traces my face.

I'm petrified at this, I have never had a woman come in here and...

She takes her hand and pulls mine off the wall. She moves my fingers inside of her.

I make sounds of pleasure though I feel anything but. She moves my hand for me to give herself maximum pleasure.

I feel so repulsed and hateful towards this woman and these people.

She moves my hand around inside of her still kissing me and managing to claw at my breasts.

When my hand becomes my own again and she leaves me alone, I look over at the syringes. They are so tempting I could just simply reach over and use all of them. I could pump my blood with eight of them in one go and be done with this life. But would that even kill me?

Just as I reach for the next syringe another strange occurrence comes. Six men at once. Could I really handle rape from six men at once?

I take six syringes and allow each one of them to use my body.

Six men. That's how many men I can take at one time. Six.

They take turns and jeer at me as if I'm a caged tiger. They slip inside me, they breathe heavily with each movement. Each one of them goes harder than the last, each of them make me bleed, and each of them manage to get semen and blood to surround me.

I am half awake for the sex but I can feel them as the tracker-jacker venom pumps through me. I can feel them move my body with theirs I can feel their skin touch mine. I scream and groan which entertains them greatly.

I only know the shear hate I feel for them as I lay in my half awake half asleep state I dream of killing. Killing just seems so incredibly easy now.

What I would do to see someone else's blood pour out of their body cavity. What I would do to see someone else's life sucked out of them. That would be the day.

The day someone else is barely holding onto life, not having eaten food in months. I want to see someone suffer as I have, raped by countless men. My dreams are filled with killing and other's blood spilling out and I have not been so satisfied since... I don't know when.

* * *

Too many days have passed, too many days of me crying alone, too many days of rape now by men and women, as well as large groups. I want to die, I want nothing more than to die.

Everyday Snow comes into my cell feeds me pills for nutrition and abortions, everyday men and women alike use my body as a sex toy. I can't stand it anymore!

I want to die more than I want to do anything else. I sit in an eternal pool of blood both dried and new. I sit in my own feces and wait for the day I die.

What is life if there is no purpose?

I sit and wait eagerly to die. Dying will be easy, dying will be the best part of my life.

I have, however, learned to bear with the pain of living. I now cut myself with the empty syringes to occupy my time.

Once I've run out of room on my arms, I move on to my stomach since no one bothers to touch that. My ankles are always next.

After that I have nothing left to cut but my thighs and I'm hesitant to do so most times because people touch them when they rape me. But some days I can't stop myself and I have to cut. Those are the worst days, when my blood boils so much, when I want to kill so bad I have to cut my thighs to bring my temper down.

Another thing about the serum I use, it heals open wounds so I always have a fresh canvas to cut. Bruises, however, remain.

I've become numb and limp. I am useless, I am broken, I am not the girl on fire. I am not the Mockingjay, or the face of the rebellion. I am not anyone's precious hope. Fuck hope! It is only a figment, hope is not real it is a state of mind for the pathetic. Hope helps no one. Hope is only for people who have something to lose. Hope does not exist inside these walls. Hope does not exist, for I have nothing left to give.

Fuck hope, fuck life, fuck the world. I only have one hope, and that is to die before the next day comes.

* * *

Snow has just left my cell, He doesn't give me the serum anymore. I take it on my own.

I sit and wait for a while. I'm alone and that never happens.

Finally the door opens and two men stand in the door.

"Only two this time?" I ask in a defeated voice. I reach over and pull out two syringes.

"Katniss? What are you doing?" I hear a frantic voice ask.

I haven't heard my name used in what must be months. I still plunge the serum into my arm.

The restraints haven't been used yet. Why? Do they trust me to not move while I'm being fucked?

The two men pick me up which is more painful than I can tolerate. I scream in agony though it still comes out as pleasure.

"We have her?" I hear one of them say. "Move out!"

My world is spinning, I am being jostled in this man's arms. I still gasp and moan as if he is pleasuring me.

I would ask what is happening but I cannot. I hear so much shouting now it drowns out the sounds of sexual pleasure that escape my mouth.

I squirm in this mans arms as my skin crawls with the electricity this serum gives.

I dare not open my eyes. I'm too afraid of what is happening. Maybe I'm being led to my next torture, maybe I'm going to finally die.

I fear the unknown and maybe more than that I fear this occurrence to be in favor of my life.

"_She had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, like when you're swimming and you want to put your feet down on something solid, but the water's deeper than you think and there's nothing there" ~ Julia Gregson_

"_He didn't know if that was really true or not, but he discovered something which was tremendously liberating: he didn't care. He was very tired of thinking and thinking and still not knowing. He was also tired of being frightened, like a man who has entered a cave on a lark and now begins to suspect he is lost" ~Stephen King_


	3. Chapter 3 The Bottom

_"Some people don't want to be found when they run away. Some people don't want to stand up when they've been pushed down. Some people don't want to be helped when they've been beaten and abused. Some people don't want help when their lives are in shambles. And yes some people don't want to live when they've killed themselves."_

I wake slowly and am incoherent, it seems, for much longer than I know I wish to be.

I feel people near by me. I hear the steady beep of a heart monitor and know where I am.

Six people sit around me. They are unfamiliar to me. Two blonde women rest their heads on one another on my right. An old man with sagging skin and a young-looking bronze haired man to my left. A man with dark hair lays farther to my left, and one final boy holds my hand.

I rip my hand from this man in disgust. They all begin to stir as I try to find a way to escape.

"You should have kept me locked up!" I shout before punching the bronze haired man between the ribs and then to the face.

The old man tries to grab my arms but I snap around to get a good blow to his neck knocking him down.

The man with dark hair comes at me next. I jab his groin before knocking him down. I try to run but the two blonde women get in my way. One knock to the head and the taller woman is down.

I shove the little one in the stomach so she too falls to the ground.

"Katniss!" The blonde boy grabs my hand. I whip around and grab his neck.

I begin to cut off his breath while I let out my rage, "Should have kept the little whore in cuffs shouldn't you?" He tries to speak behind my grasp, "Blubbering idiot! You'll pay for this!"

I feel arms take me away. The blonde crumbles to the ground.

I kick and scream against the strong grip of my enemy.

"Kill me already! Goddamnit kill me! I'm fucking done!" I scream and wrangle myself free and slap the old man who held me. "What are you going to do to me!? YOU'VE TAKEN EVERYTHING!" I scream and toss the man across the room.

Doctors run in and surround me. "Get sedatives! She could reopen her stitches!"

"Kill me!" I shout and struggle against them. I see the people I've knock down begin to come back to themselves. "I know that's all you want! Kill me! Just get it fucking over with!"

The doctors have strapped me to the bed by now and have shot my neck with something. My skin begins to crawl like the serum made me feel. Then I remember the flesh-eating mutants.

I scream and thrash against the mutants, they're there I know they are.

"She's not responding!" I hear a frantic voice say.

"Fuck off!" I remember the tortures they put me through, being on fire, being electrocuted, the whipping. Oh god damn.

"Why isn't she responding?"

"Leave me to die!" I shout at the voices. The voices of those who want me dead, no the voices of those who want to fuck me, and the voices of those who want me to burn.

The doctors move about and give me another dosage of something. My breathing just intensifies. The images of rape all flood back to me.

I begin to cry hysterically, "You've taken everything" I say defeated, "Leave me to die."

It is then I realize that they don't listen to prisoners pleas... Ever.

I feel more medicine plunge into my blood stream and I slip away into the endless void of sleep.

* * *

I wake up alone, well, at least I feel alone.

"Morning sunshine" I hear. I try to move as my eyes adjust to the light. "You told us to Sweetheart." The old man is sitting at my bedside.

"Where... Fuck that who are? When will Snow get here?" I ask.

He looks at me sadly, "Sweetheart, Snow isn't here. You're in District Thirteen."

"Yeah right you fucking bastard just tell me what you're going to do to me next!"

"Calm down, you really are in District Thirteen."

"...Who are you? Why should I trust you?"

"Do you really not remember sweetheart?" He asks.

"I can't allow myself to remember." I say thinking back to my confinement, to that room where my blood will remained forever.

"I'm Haymitch, remember? I was your mentor for the Hunger Games." I think back, at one time the Hunger Games had been the worst thing to happen to me, but now...

"It's vague." I say.

"What is?"

"Those days... The days before... If you're from District Thirteen for real then you know what happened to me since I was captured!" I realize.

"All those transmissions were so badly received we didn't understand them." He says.

"Lair." I say.

"I am many things, a liar is not one of them." He states.

"...What happened?"

"Katniss... You have to tell us that, so we can help you." He looks concerned but I feel too strangely and undecided about him yet.

"I can't be helped." I say.

"Everyone can b-"

"No you don't understand, I've seen too much. I've done so much wrong... I can't... I" I feel suddenly very angry at his prying. I try to free myself, he just wants to hurt me. He wants to hurt me like Snow hurt me.

"Kid, stop it!" He pins down my shoulders, "Look at me kid! Come back to me, you're safe"

"I'll never be safe" I retaliate calmly. "Never... Never."

"You're safe here I promise." I shake my head still. He gets off me because my anger has faded away. "All we know from your torture is that Snow put something in your system that makes you have 'episodes'." He says to me.

"He did more than give me a little fucking episode." I say.

"I know," He sighs.

"Tell me who were those people in here earlier?" I ask.

"Those women were your mother and little sister." He pauses as if I'll remember something. "Finnick was here... And your best friend Gale... And Peeta."

"Did I hurt anyone badly?" I ask.

"Not physically" He sighs.

"What does that mean?"

"Do you remember anything at all before your capture?"

"I don't want to try." I shiver.

"... Your family... Your friends they need you back."

"I can't" I say.

"Seeing you like a Capitol drone is killing them."

"I'm sorry, but what do they want from me? To forget every time I was..." I swallow the word rape. I can't even say it. I see every face who ever violated me and instead start to cry.

"It's okay now Sweetheart." He says.

"It will never be okay." I say back through sobs. He's silent then. I like silence better than words. He takes my hand but does nothing more than lets me cry. "How long?" I ask.

"You were gone for about four months."

"And-And you don't know what happened to me?" I stutter.

"We don't know. Only what Johanna has told us."

"Jo-Johanna?"

"She's safe. She's here too." He again lets me cry until I can't anymore, "Katniss, I want to you to remember this okay?"

"Why?"

"This is rock bottom, this is the lowest you'll sink. Remember it and never come back."

"... What?"

"Get better" He says and leave my side so a nurse can come and insert an IV drip.

_Fall seven times, stand up eight. ~Japanese Proverb_


	4. Chapter 4 Time

_"Time heals all wounds"_

The next day Haymitch returns to my bed but this time he brings something I haven't seen in months. Food.

"On doctors orders of course" He says setting the tray in front of me. "I'm not allowed to leave until all of it's gone."

I look down at it almost unsure of what to do with it. He takes off one of my cuffs while I observe it.

"Well go on." He says. I pick up the roll and nibble on it.

"I can't believe this rebellion is real." I say.

"Believe it sweetheart,"

"Why didn't I know anything?" I ask.

"Because it was all so complicated and you were a prominent figure-head for us."

"A figure-head?"

"Yes" He says. I'm full after half of the roll is gone. I put it back on the tray and look at Haymitch. "The boy wanted me to make sure you enjoyed that sweetheart."

"Huh?"

"Peeta, he's a real mess because of all of this."

"Like I'm not?"

"I never said you weren't. Go on kid I don't plan on spending all day with you just chit-chatting" To appease him I pick up the spoon and start swirling it in the soup.

"Is Johanna okay?"

"Are you sure you're ready to hear about her?"

"I want to know if they did the same things to her." I say.

"... After... After she watched you get whipped she was convinced you were dead. They started water torture on her."

"Water torture?"

He nods, "The put her half way in and shocked her with electricity."

"Was that it?" I ask slightly angered.

"Yeah." He says.

I sip a bit of soup but instantly feel sick. I put the spoon down and grimace slightly.

"What's wrong kid?" He asks in a condescending way.

"I can't remember." I shudder.

"What?"

"I can't remember the last time I ate." His face turns from humor to dismay for the circumstances.

"Can you tell me anything about what happened?"

I want to shake my head no but I do remember, I remember everything too much for my liking. "I could tell you. I remember what happened to me. But I certainly don't want to." I say with a shaking voice.

"Try" He coaxes.

"... He used me. As a fundraiser... More than once. For many things." My voice catches in my throat as I remember my first torture. "He brought in medical students and made a map of the human body... Using mine."

"What do you mean?"

"They cut open my veins and arteries. All except my neck. Because they didn't want to kill me." I say feeling tears run down my face. I can't say anymore. I suddenly feel the weight of the world crashing down on my shoulders. My tears make me sick of pitying myself. I wasn't always this way. I wasn't always a blundering mess. I can't remember who I was, thinking too far back hurts too much.

I'm not surprised that my stomach empties itself. However Haymitch seems surprised, as he runs out of the room and gets a nurse for me.

The nurse takes away the tray of now disgusting looking food and straps me back to the bed. I'm still too dangerous I guess.

She comes back with cleaning supplies. She gets on her knees to clean up my vomit.

I look at her, "Thank you." I say, "You look sad, and like no one cares, like you've had a bad day and now you've got to clean up some crazy girls throw up. So thank you."

She looks up at me and smiles, "You don't need to thank me honey." She says. Normally I'd hate being called that more than anything but she's cleaning up my vomit.

I don't say anything, but I turn away and fall asleep.

Haymitch doesn't come by again but the nurse from yesterday does. She tells me I'm starting therapy which sounds just about as fun as it is.

The doctor they've assigned me to kind of just stares at me. I don't talk though. Ever five seconds he says.

"Katniss, you'll have to tell us what happened. We've been able to get most of the venom out of your system but we have to know what happened." Or something along those same lines. I don't even think about telling him. I don't trust him, I really don't.

Over a few days time I'm no longer strapped to the bed or my wheelchair when I'm rolled to therapy.

Today is my free day, my nurse comes in and hands me a book to read, 'to pass the time'. I don't want to pass the time, I want to pass away and stop torturing these poor people.

However half way through my read there are people at the door. A lot of people.

My nurse comes to my bed, "The Doctor thought seeing your family and friends could help you open up." Like hell it will. But I nod anyway.

I see all the people standing at the door from before, when I lashed out. They all slowly trickle into the room.

"Hey Catnip" The man with dark hair says. I know who he is, I remember being called that. But I don't want to.

"Kat" The little girl looks at me with large sad eyes. I pick up my book again suddenly engrossed in my read, but Haymitch puts his hand over the text.

"Come on." He says.

I look over at the bronze haired man, my memories with him are not very clear. "Did I hurt you?" I ask.

"Not badly. Nothing a few stitches can't fix." He says. I nod to him.

"How's Johanna?" I ask in general.

"She's working. Doing very well." The tall blonde says. I'm sure she's my mother. But there's something holding her back.

I look and see the blonde boy crying. I suddenly feel angry and hurt, "Why are you crying!? You weren't the one who-"

"Katniss" I hear the sinister voice of my insane mind speak up. "My little lamb." I turn and see it isn't my mind talking but the television. "Thank you for giving us the ability to actually transmit our little messages to your friends." Snow is there. He's here, to hurt me.

"Don't you remember? I filmed them all, my little lamb. With the intent to crush you" His eyes blaze through me. "Now Ladies and Gentlemen your girl on fire."

If I thought the torture was bad watching it again feels like reopening every cut and scar the Capitol took away from me.

I feel like screaming in pain every time I hear myself groan. I look up at the exact moment I'm burned alive. I watch myself melt and nearly die, until I'm whipped of course.

Watching the flesh-eating mutants is the hardest to watch. I don't even look human, and it makes my stomach churn.

Then I am finally raped. Snows words ring in my ears. My strangled cries that are hardly audible behind his lips.

The rest is of the Eight hundred forty-six times I was raped during my captivity all in a montage. Memories of cutting myself, of screaming in fake pleasure every time electricity coursed through me, of bleeding all come back to me. For once there is no rage, only the stabbing regret and pain.

"You see my little lamb. I still own you." He says. I close my eyes and try to disappear.

"Katniss" I hear Haymitch sigh.

"Go away" I say.

"We can-"

"No you can't" I say calmly tears streak down my cheeks. "You can't help me. Don't you get it? I'm far beyond help. Didn't you see what happened to me? I have nothing left to fix. Leave me alone." I say again make myself as small as possible so I can cry.

I hear them all exit. I punch my legs in anger and regret. "Fuck" I whisper.

I feel pity surface in my blood. I hate pity. I look over and only see a hair brush by my nightstand. I take it and break off the brush. It seems sharp enough.

I turn away from the door, though it's closed I feel like someone is looking in. I sit on the edge of the bed and sink the object into my arm.

I don't want to pity myself anymore. The familiar feel of blood running down my arm calms me. It surprises me, but it's true.

Once both of my arms are drenched in blood I'm ready to die. I'm ready to kill myself.

I take it and start to cut my neck.

"Katniss!" I hear a scream. "Stop!" My arm is so blood deprived the moment it is hit my arm goes completely limp.

The blonde boy is there now. "Katniss no. You-You can't" He's crying again, I hate that. He is clutching my wrists, but I try and fight his grip anyway.

"Stop this," He begs.

"Why do you so desperately want to save a corpse?" I ask him. "That's all I am."

"No that's the Capitol talking Katniss-"

"No it isn't" I say, "It's me talking. I want to d-"

"Don't say that." He says angrily. "Don't you dare say that!" He starts to shake me, "Do you understand that? You're going to live." I can feel my face blanche as the blood loss gets to me.

I feel dizzy, like the world around me is fading in and out.

"Nurse!" The blonde boy shouts nervously taking notice of my blood on his hands. "Nurse!" He sounds like he's under water.

Maybe I'll die now. Maybe I can finally be done with this. My nurse comes in and gets me back into bed. She presses buttons on my bed and the blonde boy stands back staring in awe at my blood on his hands.

Please, if there is a god let me die.

"_It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone." ~ __Rose Kennedy_

* * *

Some of you guys have asked me if this will be long. It's not, about three more chapters and then three different endings to choose from. I'll post all three on this story and they are all alternate endings, since I'm indecisive and couldn't pick one. Love you!


	5. Chapter 5 Insanity

_"It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane." ~ Philip K. Dick,_

I wake up with gauze wrapped around my arms and strapped down to the bed. "I guess I'm still dangerous" I whisper.

"No" I hear. I'm startled and look around anxiously. "Just to yourself." The blonde boy appears by my side.

"Really?" I ask amused, "So you people enjoy watching someone suffer?"

"Not at all." He sits down.

"Tell me your name" I instruct.

"Peeta" He sighs.

"Why are you here?"

"We want to help you, Katniss." I scoff at this, "We can help you."

"I can't be helped." I say.

"Yes you can, but you have to try" He sighs

"Why should I?" I ask, not in a contradicting way. But a curious way nonetheless.

"Because I love you" He says. "I know you've seen a lot and you may not feel the same way. But I love you, and I need you. I need you to try for me. Do just this for me. Please" He's begging me again. I feel uncomfortable with him. Or something like that because my heart is doing this weird uncomfortable thing. "I've spent so long trying to keep you alive, you can't die on me now."

I look at him trying to feel something, anything. I pity him for loving me. I'm just some useless corpse.

"Why do you all care so much? I don't care at all"

"Because... You're you" He says, "Prim misses you Katniss, Gale misses you, your mom misses you. Even Haymitch misses you and that's saying something." He takes my hand that's strapped to the bed.

"They miss someone who isn't here anymore." I say.

He's crying again, "You're still you Katniss."

"No I'm not." I sigh.

"Yes you are, Snow may have hurt you but he didn't take you a-"

"I was raped!" I shout at him, "The one thing I held dear, the one thing I had was taken from me! I'm not myself anymore! Stop kidding yourself into thinking I am!" I can feel blood ooze from the cuts in my arms. I've reopened the stitches in my arms in my anger. He calls for a nurse and I'm knocked out yet again.

* * *

The next time I wake up I meet with someone else.

"Morning" It's an older stern-looking woman. I feel like I've done something to piss her off as she scowls ever so easily. I think she's repeatedly stabbing me with her mind.

"Morning?" I ask unsure.

"You've been wasting my time." The woman says. She stands up and thrusts clothing onto my chest. "Get dressed there's work to be done." I nod and quickly change. "I'm President Coin, District Thirteen's elected official. Walk with me" She says.

The shirt's a bit too small, but it's long-sleeved which I'm grateful for. I can cover my arm wrappings.

She begins to give me some assignment about battle planning. "You'll be fighting, I'm not worried about you. You've got a good amount of crazy, crazy is good for a soldier keeps them sane."

I ponder those words, though they are fairly contradictory I think I understand them.

"This is the training room, I'll send you here when the recruits are finished." I peer into the glass that she has gestured to.

I see people working and training, they're throwing knives and shooting at targets.

I look around and see a few familiar faces. Haymitch stands by watching others train, the man with dark hair works diligently crouched . Then I spot Peeta and he's spotted me.

He looks confused, afraid even. Like I'm an unstable mess. I am an unstable mess.

I see a few of them glance up at me and stop completely as well.

"Little lamb..." I hear my decaying mind speak up, "They only want to harm you little lamb."

"No" I whisper grabbing Coin's attention.

"All anyone wants to do is hurt you."

"Leave me alone." I grasp my head as if to keep it in place.

"Remember I have your sanity"

"SHUT UP!" I scream and begin to back away. I need to fight for my sanity, the shreds of it left at the very least.

"All anyone wants to do is hurt you." It says again.

"Katniss, listen to me. You have more self-control and power than anyone I know. You can beat him" Coin says in a not so confident way. "You have the power to destroy him. This rebellion has the power to destroy him."

"You're worthless." The voice says again.

"You have the power to end this." She's not talking about my insanity, she isn't talking about silencing the voice, she's talking about the rebellion.

What a bitch.

The voice of my sick brain goes silent and I am left with tears still slipping down my face.

"Come on," Coin says. "We have work to do." She leads me out of the room, my body shakes violently.

"Coin!" We hear making our way down the hall. "Coin what are you doing?" We turn to see Peeta chasing after us.

"Soldier, what are you doing out of training?"

"Did you not see what just happened to her?" He gestures to me, "She's not ready, she needs time to heal."

"Too much time has been wasted already. She just needs work."

"She looks like she'll throw up at any moment." I feel slightly insulted by this.

"She'll just have to suck it up then soldier. Her well-being is no concern of yours."

"Like hell she isn't"

"Go back to training, Everdeen get a head start" Coin points down the hall. I nod and start on my way. I begin at a low jog so I can block out the rest of the conversation.

I start crying again, and feeling more pity for myself. Why do I have to pity myself so much?

I turn a few corners, realize I'm lost, and sit on the ground. I sob into my arms pathetically.

I punch my shaking legs a bit, curse under my breath, and stand up. Wiping my eyes dry I take to walking through the halls.

I'm so useless. I can't seem to get anything right. I'm dead weight to everyone.

I shouldn't be bringing these people down. I should be dead.

I clutch my head firmly tugging on strands of hair. I'm going crazy, fuck that I am crazy.

I fall against a wall and gasp for breath. I hate myself for this. I knock my head back against the wall.

I'm desperate for an escape. Even simply sleeping will be grace to end this cycle of thinking.

"I am not worthless" I whisper.

"Yes you are" My brain says, "You always have been. Little whore"

"Stop" I beg.

"Why? That's what you are a stupid little whore. Capitol Prostitute. Nothing more than a piece of flesh to bone. Nothing more than a sex toy so others can indulge their craving for human reproduction."

"Leave me alone." There is no fight in my voice like before.

"Why?" It asks, "Why should you, a murdering wretch be spared?" I cannot fight back to this voice, "Remember, you did this to yourself. You had to live. Your life has killed thousands. You have killed more than you know.

"Your life has left others lifeless. And for what? Some stupid boy? Some stupid berries? You did this, you deserve this."

"Yes" I answer, "Yes I do."

"You got everything that was coming to you. Surgery may have hidden the scars, but they will never be gone. It will always be there, the pain, the deserving pain. It hurt so much more because you deserved it."

I open my eyes now, "I'm going crazy" I say.

"Honey, you already are." My brain tells me, and it is so true.

I stand up, I shake away those thoughts and keep moving. However they don't die away, and me suppressing the thoughts makes my head ache.

I look up and see a figure standing at the end of the hall. They see frazzled and distressed like me.

Are they real? Are they not even there? I'm not sure, "Hello?" I ask in a small frightened voice.

The figure turns to me and walks closer. We walk up until we're face to face. It's Johanna, her eyes are frightened but seem relieved that it's me.

"Johanna... Are you real?" I ask.

She nods and tears threaten to spill out of her eyes. "Yeah, brainless, I'm real" She hugs me then and for the first time in a long time I'm held in an embrace I don't seeth with hate over. I like this human contact. I'm happy to be in someone's presence.

Maybe because I know how fucked up she is, maybe because we're both fucked up. But I'm happy, and I hug her back, even if we are both fucked up.

"I thought they lied to me... I thought they killed you. You went through more hell than I did Brainless." She's crying I can feel her tears.

"They drove me insane" I confess because I think she'll get me.

"The took me to hell and back, they took you to hell and left you there. Fuck them, be insane Brainless, just so long as you're here." I start crying then, because she needs someone. We both need someone, and what's crazy is that we both need someone crazy.

And we're both crazy, so we both need each other.

"Thank you for being real" I cry into her shoulder.

"Thank you, for the spark" She says and I completely understand, even though I shouldn't at all.

I start to feel stronger as we cry together. Two broken girls crying, and somehow I feel more complete.

"Let's go inside." She suggests and takes me into her apartment. She tells me about her work, how Coin thinks her thirst for vengeance sets her above the rest.

I show her my scars from cutting, I tell her about crying and pitying myself. She understands and so do I.

"She told me, that I've got a good amount of crazy, crazy is good for a soldier keeps them sane." I say.

"Perfectly contradictory that bitch is... I mean woman."

"No she's a stone cold bitch" I say.

"Amen hun." Johanna salutes me, "The bat shit crazy woman needs to rot in the deepest corner in hell right next to Snow."

"He'd probably be scared into submission by her." Talking about Snow with Johanna seems frighteningly simple. I'm afraid of this, but embrace it.

They'd make ugly demon babies" She says.

"Why would you even think that?" I ask disgusted and remember that Snow had put his offspring in me at one point. And killed it the day after. Then I sadly imagine Snow and Coin having sex.

"I don't know but now I'll never un-see it" She laughs, and I laugh too. Because laughing is easier than crying.

"Johanna?" I ask.

"Yes Brainless?"

"Did you see the video... Of me-"

"Yes." She says solemnly. "Why?"

I want to tell someone about the torture, I need to tell someone. I only told her about the hospital, sparing her of the detailed torture and rape. "Eight hundred and forty-six times." I say.

"Huh?"

"Eight hundred and forty-six times, I was raped. One hundred and seventy-three times by women. Two hundred and twelve times were by groups."

"You don't have to talk about this." She says to me.

"If I don't... I'll just keep giving in to that stupid voice that's telling me I'm dead weight." I feel safe with Johanna. She's crazy, she went crazy long before we were captured.

I tell her what it felt like to be the real girl on fire. About the seizing and the mutants and the rape. Mostly about the rape. About the pills for abortions.

"That's one thing I don't know" I say. I haven't shed a single tear, "How many babies I lost."

Johanna is crying, not hard, but silent cascading tears. Tears that have drawn lines down her cheeks. Her eyes are not red, her breathing is normal, her head rests on her hand, and she looks at me with blank eyes.

"I feel like a whiny bitch now" She says. I crack a smile. She hasn't wiped away any tears. They drip off her chin onto the table we're sitting at.

She takes my hands and looks at me, "You... Brainless, can't be so stupid as this."

I laugh at this, "What?" I ask.

"You can't be so stupid to let that mother fucker have his way with you, sell your body for sex and pain, then just cry about it. Not even you are that stupid.

"The only way anything is going to change, the only way the scar tissue can grow is if you get off your lazy ass and do something about it.

"Don't wait around for lover boy to save you. Don't have ANYONE save you. You have and you will save yourself.

"The only way you'll stop pitying yourself, the only way you'll shut up that voice is to get up and do something to change it." Jo is still crying but her voice is steady and true. "I'm having a moment here" She says. "And now I'm the hypocrite."

"Well then" I speak up, "Stop being a hypocrite you stupid bitch" I say and she laughs.

"Fuck you Brainless."

"Fuck you too" I say with a smile.

And you know what I don't think I followed Johanna's advice. Because I didn't really save myself. Because really she did. She saved me, and I guess in a way I just saved her.

We need each other, and to be needed by someone you need just as much... Well I hope you feel that some day because I can't describe it.

There are enough words to say so, but none of them are proper. None of them are deserving of even describe how it feels.

You don't always need to save yourself. You just need someone to tell you to do it. And then just like that, they're your hero.

And you feel fixed even though you aren't and you know it. You know you're still the remains of a freak accident but suddenly the accident isn't tragic. It's fucking hilarious and you have someone to watch you pick up the pieces and laugh while doing so.

You smile while fixing yourself. Which seems weird but it's awesome. Without her I'd never gotten off my ass. I might have killed myself.

And she tells me about how she thought about killing herself. How after her Games she thought about ODing right then and there. How after we were rescued she almost did kill herself just like me.

But then she saw those videos and she stopped. So in a way I saved her, just as much as she saved me.

She says she felt selfish for wanting to die when I had gone through worse. She says I'm brainless but that's only good because I'm brave.

I didn't feel brave before but now I do. I guess that makes us friends. I guess that makes us heroines for our own stories.

We both know we've got a hell of a mess to clean, but we'll do it, and we'll find a way to laugh when it's almost too much to bear. Because that's what friends do.

_"Sometimes you just want everyone to fuck off. That's when you find the one person who needs your help as much as you need theirs. They show you that you didn't want everyone to fuck off, you just wanted that one person."_


	6. Chapter 6 Choices

_"There is always one person in our lives who is so sacred to us, that they've seen everything we have, and we still think they're a better person."_

I find that talking to Johanna has given me a new feeling. That of friendship. I used to have one friend before. Gale. His friendship was very dear to me. He was very dear to me. I'm not the same person though, neither is he.

I wonder if he'll take me back. I think he should, if our friendship was as strong as it once was.

I have been assigned work hours in training. I eat when the cafeteria is empty. Coin claims she doesn't want anything to trigger me, but I just think she doesn't want me to talk to anyone.

I try to think back to a time when I wasn't afraid, only I can't. Simply because my whole life I've been afraid. Fear is almost a meaningless word now. Everyone is afraid of something or everything. I don't personally understand this.

I find myself meandering in the halls trying my best to seem distracted. Today I'm just so damned bored I can't focus on anything.

So I wander around with my hands shoved in my pockets. I wish I could do something other than be useless.

The thoughts of rape are still fresh in my mind. I don't think those thoughts will ever just leave me. Maybe someday but not now.

I look around and feel my eyes lock with blue. Peeta, what's he doing out of training?

He walks toward me cautiously, "Skipping Training?" I ask with a crack in my tone.

He looks at me sadly, "Yeah"

"Why?"

"... I don't know." He says letting me drink in the tense silence, "What are you doing?"

I shrug, "I'm not scheduled for training until three." He nods.

"Um... Katniss. Would you come with me?" He asks.

"Where?" I ask.

"Just somewhere." He's trying to be discrete about something so I let him.

"Alright." I say. He turns and I follow at his side. "... Um... How are you?" He doesn't answer. I feel sudden guilt, I hurt him so badly why would he tell me something like that? "I'm sorry" I whisper, "I didn't mean it. I don't mean half of what I'm doing anymore." I feel like crying but I won't. I can't.

He slips his hand to curve with mine. "It's not your fault."

"It kind of is."

"You didn't let them do that to you."

"I let it happen, I didn't fight." I say this but want to take it back.

He looks down at me tears stream down his extremely pale face. He takes in a shaky breath but says nothing. He opens a door and leads me in.

"A boiler room?" I ask.

"It's the only place they don't film." He says rather loudly as the machines churn and spew steam, "I come here to think"

"How can you think here? I can barely hear my own thoughts." I say to match his tone.

"This place reminds me of myself." He says, "Just going through the motions, working with someone else's agenda. But this is the only place I'm not just doing things."

I look into his crying eyes. I don't know what to say to him.

"I'm sorry that everything sucks. I'm sorry that the world is upside down and inside out but I only know one thing." His hands rest on my hips, "I love you. I always have and always will. I love you, that's the only real thing about me."

How could I forget he was in love with me? I keep looking at his crying face and feel the need to make a choice on my feelings for him.

"I tried so hard to keep you safe, but I couldn't save you. I thought you were dead for so long... I couldn't have imagined the hell you were going through."

I'm almost afraid for our sanities he's pulling me closer to him. But it's gentle, no matter how gentle this is, it reminds me of the world I knew for so long.

"I never want to lose you again. I never want that to happen and I want you safe in my arms forever. I want to keep you safe." His arms can practically wrap around my waist twice. I can see his pain up close.

His pain might just be as bad as my pain.

"I will keep you safe even if it kills me." His face is so close to mine. I can't help but remember, I want to scream in fear. I want to run but he's so strong he'd keep me here and really rape me.

I must really be fucked up if I think Peeta would hurt me. To think he'd keep me here to have his way with me.

His lips find mine, it's not forced but I'm not sure if it's real. I'm not sure of anything and him being here, it make me want it to be real. I want it to be, but it isn't. or at least I'm not sure it is.

He pulls back no longer crying. It's my turn, I bury my face in his chest. I gasp for air desperate for his gentleness. He lets me cry and doesn't let me go.

I don't want him to let me go. I want to be held until I know who I am and what I want.

"They will never take you away again." He promises rubbing my back. I hope he's right but hope is not something I've grown fond of.

* * *

The next day I spend training focused. So focused I forget to stop for my scheduled meal. So focused I don't notice other people in the once empty training area.

Needless to say that I was pulled away so I didn't, you know, pass out from hunger.

I tried to distract myself from thinking in general. Just because it hurt to think. It seemed like too much trouble.

I'm still afraid of so much. I haven't seen my mother or Prim in a while. I'm afraid of what they've seen me do. Jo helps me, says I shouldn't be afraid. When people tell you to not be afraid, the initial fear doesn't leave but there's a sense of relief there.

I'm sitting in my apartment now, I'm brushing my hair trying to not think anymore. I don't like thinking much, at nights I remember all the dark rooms I had been held captive in, and though the memories are spaced out they still haunt me. I still have to sleep with the light on.

I hear a quick knocking at my door. I look over and instantly freeze. "Come on Katniss" I whisper, but I can't move.

"Come in" I call our and continue to brush my hair. I look over and see Gale walk into my room. He tenses up when he sees the brush in my hands. I remember trying to kill myself with this.

"It's not sharp enough." I say. I show him by hitting it on the dresser as hard as I can. It doesn't break.

He still looks hesitant so I hand it to him.

He takes it and places it high up on a shelf.

I take a breath and look at him intently, "What bring you here?"

His apprehension fleets from him, "I'm here to deliver orders." He says "We'll be heading out in two days."

I nod while biting my lip. I want to say something but I'm not good at saying things.

"I've missed you Catnip." He says stepping closer to me.

I stand up, "I've missed you too Gale" I say this without thinking. I miss him, I miss how things used to be. Even under Capitol rule at least we were happy. At least I had my sanity.

"Things have changed. A lot of things have changed." He looks at me in a way I've never seen him look at anyone before.

"Yes" I say.

"It's almost like, we grew up."

"I didn't grow up." I say, "I died."

"Not to me you didn't." He says. How did I manage to forget two boys loved me? Am I just stupid?

I look at my feet and half-smile.

"You beat them you know." I look at him questioningly, "Because you're standing here and not crying on the floor." I can't help but chuckle at this.

"That certainly is an improvement." I say.

His arms find their way around me. and I can't fight the urge to do the same. I miss him, though we never hugged before, I feel like he's back.

"You've always been strong." He says to me. His head is so incredibly close to my face, I can feel his stubble rub against my neck. The feeling sends chills down my spine. I feel like holding my breath because I'm suddenly very aware of what could happen next.

I'm right, as he pulls back from our embrace he lets himself kiss me. My brain can only process one thought, 'Well I'm screwed' because I am. As if it wasn't bad enough that I'm a broken mess of a woman I have choices that I'll never be ready to make.

"See you in two days Catnip." He says before leaving me.

"Goodnight" I say before he closes to door. I don't start crying but the thoughts take over again.

I'm internally cursing at myself, my mind is crying out that I'm stupid and worthless but they don't harm me. I know I am.

Right now I'd be perfectly fine with crawling up and dying in a dark hole.

I lay in my bed and close my eyes only to see both kisses. Both were warm, and soft. Both were kind and gentle. Both were from people I have not literal clue how to love.

I think that's the best thing I can say is that I don't know how to love. I don't remember I don't want to. Johanna feels like my only friend, everyone else is just a huge problem.

I have a lot of problems.

But then it hits me... I'm going to war in two days and here I am worrying about boys.

I really need to sort out my fucking priorities. To hell with both of them, I'm going to be fighting against the people who made my life worse by the hour. The people who plagued me with thoughts of suicide.

The choice can wait, I have some serious payback to deliver.

_"The thing is not the choice, it is the daunting task of making one."_


	7. Chapter 7 Lightness

This is as graphic as it gets I promise, this scene alone could get me banned from some websites. Fair warning tred with caution.

* * *

_"Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?" ~Maurice Freehill_

So, I find myself in the most unnerving predicament. I'm sitting on an air carrier alone, but not alone. I feel alone, though, so senselessly alone.

I have many people I know around me, but none of them know just what I'm feeling. None of them know the hell my mind is.

Johanna wasn't allowed to come because of some fucking water. I should have stayed behind. She should have come. I need her here, I need her, I need someone other than my mad self.

I'm hearing that voice again. Telling me about my worthlessness, I try not to listen but it's so hard I almost cry. Suppressing the pain make my head throb so bad my entire vision pulses. And I know it's all a hallucination that's the worst part. I know it's not real. But I keep telling myself it is. It's all true.

Why is this trip taking so fucking long anyway? We're soldiers we're supposed to be fighting damn it. I want to fight, I need to fight. I need some distraction. I'm on edge at every tiny sound, every bit of my sense is on high alert for no reason other than my brain flipping shit.

I'm trying my hardest to not cry though the engines amplify both the pain and the terror my brain inflicts on me. The pumping sounds remind me of hospitals, of respirators keeping me unwillingly alive.

I won't break down here though, they'll send me back and then these people will know just how broken and helpless I truly am. I won't have that. I won't, you're only broken if someone has to fix you, and I DON'T need fixing. I never have I never will.

"Katniss" I hear Gale standing at the door, "Dinner's up. You coming?" I turn around and my entire world spins around me. I keep my head straight though.

"No." I say before clenching my teeth together.

"You sure? We've still got a day and a half until we reach the Capitol."

"This isn't a luxury trip... I mean I'm fine." I say. My eyes pulse his image so it contorts. Even breathing hurts at this point.

"Are you okay?" He asks me.

"I'm fine." I say quickly.

"You sure?" He looks concerned.

"I will be." I say and he takes this as a valid answer. He leaves then and I turn back forward.

"Still lying." I hear my head take over for the third time today.

"Not again" I sigh.

"And to your best friend too? Maybe you're not as weak as I once thought. Maybe you just want to wallow in your own self pity."

"Shut it" I whisper.

"Or maybe you're just scared of what he'll think of you. Crazy. But you are crazy."

I silence the voice with what little strength I have. I lay on my bed shivering. I'm not cold, I just can't handle the fear and pain.

I make myself as small as conceivably possible. I take myself in a close hold. I try and force sleep but the pain won't leave.

My whole body wracks with shaking, my brain tries to speak louder than anything else. That's when I feel a trickle of blood run down my fingers. I've cut open my skin, lucky for me the cuts are covered by my hair. The others won't know how crazy I am.

I hear a knocking at the door. I wipe the blood off my fingers and open the door. These simple actions make me realize yet again, that I'm sick to my stomach.

Peeta stands in front of me, "I brought you something." He holds up a plate. I want to vomit right there, but I swallow it. I'm fine, I'm perfectly okay.

"Thank you." I say. He steps into my room without asking. He sits on my bed and pats it signaling me to sit with him. I hesitantly obey.

"I'm here to make sure you eat," He says.

"You don't have to." I say.

"You must not know me then." He says. I start to eat slowly.

He touches me, not only does he touch me but he touches my left shoulder blade. The thing pinned to the wall when I was raped. The skin that was bruised too heavily being pinned to a wall. The skin is still yellow from it, and now my skin ripples in dissatisfaction. The slightest touch sets me off.

Sick to my stomach I drop my fork.

"Useless pile of shit." I take my hands to my head again.

"Fuck" I whisper.

"Katniss?" Peeta asks. Have your thoughts ever contradicted so much it's almost like they're punching you from the inside? Yeah, that's happening to me now.

"He pities you greatly. You ARE pitiful."

I punch my head and dig my nails back into my brain. "Leave me alone" I beg.

Peeta holds me close to him hushing me. But I won't be silenced, not soon enough.

The voice changes from it's usual sinister tone to Snow's voice. "He is your weakness." I push Peeta off me, my food tumbles to the floor and the plate shatters cutting my bare feet.

Blood, I have an unusual craving for blood. But no ordinary blood. My own blood is what I thirst for.

In a fit of rage I dig my nails into the cuts I'd made previously and rip down my face. When I pull my hands back they're crimson and uneven torn skin hang from my nails. I am officially insane.

I don't scream in pain but Peeta does. "Katniss stop! Help!" But I won't stop. I hear pounding feet and begin to feel like I'm back in that dark room where I was ripped to shreds.

I scream inaudible words throwing my forehead into the wall. Then, I knock the back of my head into the wall as hard as I can. Almost immediately my vision blurs into blackness.

I'm still painfully conscious though. I've just temporarily blinded my own eyes.

I tear the skin on my arms, my skin, the thing that makes me feel more claustrophobic than anything in the entire world.

I hear indistinct voices telling me to stop, but I haven't felt so in control since before my Games.

I begin to recall the first time a group of six men raped me. How I wanted someone else's blood shed.

I was wrong then. I wanted my blood shed. I wanted my own skin back. Everything I had been was the Capitol's doing. Now I am insane I'll admit it.

I'm bat shit crazy. I need to be put down. I'm a danger to everyone around me, I have nothing left in me to keep me sane.

I try to rip the Capitol's skin off my body, I wonder if any part of me isn't owned by the Capitol but I'm wrong they own me. And they're laughing their asses off at how desperately I want myself back.

I feel hands grip my bleeding arms forcing them to stop mutilating my body. But they can't keep me from destroying all of me.

I taste the sweet metallic blood oozing all around me. I can hear blood filling my ears as it drips off the sides of my head.

My fucking blood, surrounds me. I can almost feel it absorbed by the bed. Though I'm still blinded I can picture each frightened face perfectly.

Until today, I was just recovering. Before this happened I was just pitiful wounded Katniss. Now they'll see. They'll see my fucking insanity. They'll see my pure demented mind in all it's hysteria.

I'm not Katniss their Mockingjay, I'm not a Victor, or any damned symbol of the rebellion, I'm a sick delusional teenage girl who can't tell what's real and what isn't.

* * *

The Lightness of Being Insane, that's what my therapist should call the book I seriously think he should write about me. Because I tell him just how fucked up my brain is. And every time I do I use a metaphor for light.

He'll ask me a simple, "How are you feeling today?"

And I'll respond, "Fucked up. I feel like one of those fireflies stuck in a jar. I can't get out and share my insanity. My light is secluded to one place."

He'll crack a smile and say, "That good huh?"

He reminds me of Haymitch only nicer and has a better liver. I tell him everything I can, how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking. Because I need something. I need some piece of the outside world.

After my metal deterioration in the Capitol they sent me back to Thirteen and put me in this white padded room.

When I woke up the first time and met my therapist I looked at him and asked, "How did they know white means temporary safety?"

"What?" He asked. and I explained how in the Capitol brightness meant the hospital, it meant a safe house. When I said this he looked at me and said, "They don't usually open up this quickly."

To which I replied, "Most aren't as deranged as I am." He laughed then. I like him, he's funny. But I'm crazy so you know I guess my judgment is impaired at the moment.

Everyday he'll come in sit down, and for my two hour session we'll joke around and laugh at my lunacy.

He'll leave me then and I can remember nice things. Things that make me not want to inflict pain on myself.

I sing now, I sing a lot. Sometimes I sing creepy stuff to freak out the guys watching me through cameras.

But I know my bliss can't last.

I'm taken out eventually into the cold harsh world. Like the light always finds darkness I always find pain.

Mother tells me Prim's been drafted, I feel like I should be concerned but call me selfish, I have enough of my own problems. My mental relapses send me back to the crazy room. I don't have them often but they're bad enough that I vomit sometimes.

Mother's finally picking up the slack with me. She's constantly by my side feeding me happy memories, she can even get me out of a potential relapse, when my crazy comes out she's there.

Johanna and I have grown closer still joking about our capture. It's easier to laugh than to cry. I've said this before.

I hear the low hum of the television but I don't bother listening to the words coming from it. I instead find myself playing with a token mother said Peeta gave to me in the second arena. A pearl.

I like just feeling it, it's soothing to feel it. The pearl just seems so... Pure. Something I'll never be again.

I hear mother and Johanna stop talking so I finally turn my attention to the television. War, is all I see, smoke and fire. Screams that are so familiar to me fill the empty room.

The screaming brings tears to my eyes, I know what it's like to be burning.

I don't open my eyes as the screams grow louder and louder. I clutch the pearl in my hand so tightly I hope it will keep it's shape.

I don't notice I'm the one screaming until both my mother and Johanna are calming me down.

The pearl in my hand is not broken but my skin is. I pull my nails out of the skin and look at my hand. I've made a ring of blood around the pearl.

"Katniss, you're not the one burning." Johanna says knowing my exact thoughts. I can't breathe I'm crying so hard. "Calm down, everything is okay."

But no it's not okay, there is a woman on the television saying the Capitol has surrendered and a list of the dead pops up in the corner.

I can't read any of the names as I've gone into shock and literally cannot breathe.

Will I finally die? After all I've been through? Have I seen all a higher being thinks I can take? Am I finally ready to see the light of death?

_"Happiness can be found even in the darkest times if only one remembers to turn on the light" ~Albus Dumbledore_

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She won't die, but guess what? Three endings up next! I don't know when I'll have the time to post because May is my busiest month of the year, but maybe you'll see me before June. Again not promises but I'll try.


	8. Chapter 8 On My Own Ending 1

On My Own

_"Sometimes you have to be your own hero. Because at the end of the day, you'll only ever be stuck with one person. Yourself. Everyone can abandon you but you'll be left with your own heart. So I say, be your own hero and don't be afraid to be alone." ~Unknown_

I am not quite awake. I can certainly hear the familiar beeping of the heart monitor, but my eyes remain closed.

Two familiar voices creep in on my ears. One is Peeta's he's says something about me.

The second is Gales, he says something that rings in my half conscious ears. "She'll choose the one she can't live without."

I think about this sentence for a while, leaving my confusion about my ever-closed eyes. What on Earth did he mean by that? That I had to choose one path in life or the other? How does one do such a thing?

Then it hits me, I don't have to choose. As I once heard a relationship that comes to ultimatums is not worth keeping. I'm not afraid and neither should you, neither should anyone for that matter.

When they say this... That I'll choose who I can't live without. I lay in silence for a moment pondering how best to respond. Maybe just to open my eyes, but then I think harder. I don't want to spend my life with either of them if they have to ask this question.

They figure I am asleep, but I am far from it. The two of them hold one of my hands as they say, "She'll choose the one person she can't live without." And once I've contemplated their words fully I take my hands away.

"Neither." I say simply, "I choose neither." And then I let them see me with open sane eyes. I look at them with the coldest eyes I can manage and say it again, "I choose to be on my own." I haven't been so sane in years.

I've heard a lot of things before. In books, in town, everywhere. Relationship advice is never in short supply, it's human nature.

But you know what? Leaving feels good. Choosing myself over someone else for once in my damned life feels good and right.

If I have to choose, it wouldn't be worth it. If I have to settle I wouldn't, simple as that.

I'm not afraid to be alone. I never have been, I found it inevitable. I'm perfectly alright with being alone because I know I'm really not.

I've heard that love keeps us alive. But in my life I've come to realize love would rather have me dead than alive. I think I'll be fine on my own. I'll travel around a bit I think.

I never had the desire to before but now that I know how powerful it feels to leave a place I want to do a lot more of it.

I want to feel free, and leaving something like this behind gives me wings. I am not afraid to find my own way.

People are always afraid to leave relationships behind, they are always hesitant and want to go back. But I can't go back, and it's not because they won't take me back. It's simply because I don't want to go back. I don't want to do anything dealing with them. They are part of a past with highs and lows, part of a past I want to forget but never truly will.

It's nice to be alone and not worry about anything else.

When the war ends I do not go home, instead I walk. I walk all through the country. I live on my own accord. I live for only myself and I feel whole.

I've fixed myself with nature, with the tender Earth and all its blessings. I don't need anyone. I know that I need no one. That my life is just beginning, and that here in nature I am free. I don't live by the society I grew up in I live in my own world. I am finally happy and free.

If I can give one last piece of advice it is this, never settle. Don't impress anyone but yourself, don't be afraid to be alone. I'm not alone anyway.

I see people in my travels. The only people I don't see are the people I avoid.

Don't lose yourself for someone else's sake, and don't be afraid to leave something or someone behind. What is more frightening to you, staying an endless rut of a life, or being on your own?

I'm on my own, I didn't choose, I didn't settle. And now I am a free Mockingjay.

_"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." ~Robert Frost_

So this was the original ending, I always felt Katniss was this strong stand alone woman who didn't need any old prince to save the day. She can save herself, and so can you. Save yourself because you're a kick ass woman and can do it! Or boy I guess, if you are a boy you can save yourself too!

However it can end in more than one way no? Why not check out the other two endings, once I post them?


	9. Chapter 9 Given Up Ending 2

Warning Graphic chapter ahead of you.

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"_I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare."__ Ned Vizzini_

I can't remember when I was last alone. When I was last out here in the forest all by myself. I shouldn't be here, no one knows I'm here. I should be in my room, underground. I should be receiving my medicine in ten minutes then they'll know I'm gone.

I can't help how much I want to be here though. The snow-covered ground the bare trees, all things I never appreciated before. All things I used to associate with starving.

I'm cold, freezing in fact, but that's the point. I'm feeling. And as long as I'm feeling I'm still me right? I'm still alive. As long as I can hold on to something. I reach out and touch the bark of the tree closest to me.

Rough, sticky, dark in color, alive. The one thing I know I'm not and I know I never will be again. They say they want me back. They all say that they need me. Don't they get that I need me too? Don't they understand that I have nothing left? That I've given them everything I have?

I don't think anyone needs me quite as much as me, well maybe Prim does. Did... Maybe Prim did. They told me she was dead, and that Peeta and Gale weren't conscious. They told me that my mother was out in the field and that Haymitch was still in the Capitol.

Walking isn't very easy in the snow, not to mention bare feet, but I can't manage a care for my steps. Not when the sky is a clouded night. Not when every aspect of my surroundings matches my state of mind. Blank. Endless. Dark. Empty.

The world around me is silent, forcing me to think. Think about all that has happened, how my life has fallen so far, so fast. To far. I remind myself.

It wasn't easy to escape. I told them I was going to visit Johanna, and I was. But when I got there no one else was. One of her neighbors told me that her heart stopped and no one knew why. They said she was in the hospital ward somewhere.

I guess that's really why I came out here. Because my one true friend, is more than likely dead. I guess I'm jealous really. If I'm going to be quite honest. I wish I had died on the floor of that cell, drawing one more tally with my blood as the next man came to finish my life with his own pleasure. He'd push so far into my I'd break, I'd bleed and I'd gasp in pain. Only it would sound like pleasure.

He'd be the last one, he'd takes his clothes and leave me. I'd take the closest syringe starting at my thighs and calves. Then my shoulders and my collar-bone, I'd slash open my stomach and save my arms for last.

Blood would still be pouring from my insides, the pain would be throbbing and intolerable. But it would be the end. There would be now last words or light at the end of the tunnel. I'd lay there once my whole body was bleeding and cut up.

I'd lay there and wait for death to look at me.

He'd ask me a question, "Are you ready?"

I'd look him dead in the eyes. I'd simply say, "I was born ready."

He'd lean down and I'd be free.

I've reached a point in the landscape where the trees begin to thin out. Where I realize I've reach a partially frozen river. I drop to my knees, I'm surprised that my mind hasn't tried to convince me I'm horrible. But maybe I'm already there.

I felt the snow melt against my skin, seeping into my legs and causing my already shivering body to shake uncontrollably.

I'm so cold, "But you can still feel." I say to myself. I look at myself in a patch of ice stuck to the river bank. I thought that maybe I'd see a girl. That maybe I'd look and see someone who has something to live for.

But I'm wrong. I see nothing. I see only the half-starved face, of a half-starved soul. I see tortured eyes that can't decide if they should be enraged or upset. They seem almost afraid until I realize, her eyes are dead.

She looks cold but only on the inside. Is she really cold. Inside she's a dark barren wasteland of a soul. The shattered remains of a heart litter her body cavity. There is no life, there is no light, there is no hope. And all the little people who wandered around in the darkness of her soul trying to pick up the pieces are gone.

There is but one little person left cleaning up the mess life had left behind. And that little person is on the outside now, questioning why she should keep it up, when nothing will ever fix it.

I can't take it anymore. I can't keep looking at myself. I start to cry, blinding my own eyes. Tears sting as they harden against the cold. I smash the ice with my fits sinking it to the bottom of the shallow bank. The water is painfully freezing causing an inhuman noise to escape my lips.

My right forearm is blinking red, the tracker in my arm. They know I'm gone. They're looking for me. Without a second thought I rip it out of my arm and fling it across the river to the other side of the bank.

I sit back on my heels and cry into my hands. I feel blood smear across my face, but I can't manage even the slightest care.

I look down at my arm, blood oozing off my skin. It drips into the snow, black like the rest of my surroundings. But then the blood seeps into the snow, brightening the color so it's clearly red.

I take the skin pulling back on it releasing more blood. I sit over the river watching the blood pour artfully into the river.

"I know I'm crazy." I whisper. "You can come out now. I am crazy." But the voice doesn't come. I'm infuriated at the response of silence. I run now, down stream pulling the skin off my other arm. "Come out!" I demand. The feeling of blood slipping from my arm isn't enough.

I've run far enough now, I decide to stop running and lay down in the snow. My face down in the pillow of the snow bank. When I turn over I can feel snow stuck to my face. I sit up quickly, I see faster waters here.

I rip at my legs, my thighs and calves torn to shreds. No memories come back. No voice telling me I'm worthless. Only the sound of rushing water. Only my breathing, only the sound of me tearing at myself.

I move on to tearing my stomach, I shout for that voice to no avail. I then hear myself shouting, "Stop please! It hurts!" I stop mutilating myself.

"You win." I whisper tears freezing as they touch my cheeks.

"It wasn't a game. I had always won." Finally an answer, and an honest answer at that.

Honesty something I haven't heard in a long time. Decades it seems.

So this was what that voice had wanted, me to give up. It wanted me dead. And that's just what I want. To be dead.

But how when I'm out here with nothing to use. Then I tune back into the world, it's snowing again the water crashing beside me. I turn my head and to my right I see a thinker block of ice sitting there in the bank.

I crawl to it and then with I have I break the block to a sharp edge.

Hear it is my way out. All alone but in the freedom of the wilderness. With the serenity of the flowing river, with snow falling peacefully around me. I lay now in my coffin of pillow like snow. Snow acting as the dirt that will bury me alive, how appropriate.

With the sharp-edged ice I pierce my chest filling my body with an odd kind of satisfaction.

I should feel pain, I know that. But I don't. I feel whole, proud. I did this, I am taking my own life away, so no sick man can have the satisfaction of owning me ever again.

I should feel cold, and though I most certainly don't feel warmth, I feel light.

Then he's there, a man I swear I've met before. An average looking man wearing a suit, his hands are shoved deep into the pockets of his tailored trousers.

His hair is slicked back, and he appears to be freshly shaven. He looks determined, ready for work. His face is calm as he stands beside me. His face is so calm. Not sad, not depressed, not afraid, not even remotely disgusted by my disfigured bleeding body.

He looks at me with familiarity as I feel for him. Like we're old friends finally meeting again. He looks at me without pity, without judgment.

He looks me up and down, he knows as well as I do that this is the end of me.

He knows that I've been waiting for him for all these years. He begs the question, "Are you ready?"

I look into his eyes without any fear of my own. His eyes pass no judgment, show no trace of surprise or shock. His eyes do not beg me to stay or go. He will not allow me to ask his questions that will sway me one way or another. This is my choice.

"I was born ready." I whisper through my last breath.

He leans down and takes my hand. And just as I knew I'd someday be, I am free.

He stands me upright. I feel light as air, "Look down." He says to me.

I turn and see a blood stained corpse of a once living girl. Fresh with death. I don't look at my body, instead I look at my face. Grey and blue from the cold, dark with death. My cheeks stained with watered down blood.

My lips slightly parted from my last words uttered to death. My long hair sprawled out around me like a sheet of dark fabric. My eyes still barely open empty grey eyes that read a life story for tragedy.

The saddest part however is that my face is serene, while my body shows the story of my struggles. Death places a warm hand on my shoulder, "You were undeniably strong. And I always knew that you'd welcome me when your time came."

I nod slightly as he continues, "I say we make it easier on them." Death whispers in my ear cleaning my body of a majority of the blood. He patches up my skin except where the tracker was laid in my arm, "So they can follow your trail." He says to me.

"Will they be alright?" I ask.

"No." He answers with cutting honesty, "They'll be crushed."

"Will they ever be happy again?"

"Some not all. Most of them will cry when your name is mentioned. Some will only feel an ache. One of them won't last long after you. But I'm sure you can figure out for yourself who that is."

"Peeta." I whisper.

"No actually. Haymitch will drink himself dead before midnight tonight." Death says to me, "But Peeta will soon follow you as well. It'll take him a day or two of numbness and then all at once he too will be gone from the world."

"Just as I have?" I ask.

"Just as you have." He says.

"Will they find me?" I ask and then he's there. The blonde boy who saved my life all those years ago lies beside my corpse.

"Katniss, please tell me you're in there." He begs me laying beside me in the snow. He's wounded, has bandages on his left arm. He's too weak to hold my dead body. So instead he lays with me in my snowy coffin under the bare trees of my grave site.

He cries on me. His kisses my cheeks and it tingles on me now. "Please don't give up."

But I already have. I already have.

_"It kills me sometimes, how people die." -Death (The Book Thief)_

So one more left my dear, yeah I know I killed her and yeah that was a little morbid... but you know what after a lot of thinking I thought that not everyone gets a happy ending. So yeah sorry for putting those images into your mind. So aside from that Mrs. Lincoln how was the play? No seriously how was it? In the next one they live pinky promise. Okay bye!


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